Repetition and routine offers security. However, small deviations from the norm can put a kink in the stability of our experiences and heighten anxieties. Intending to exploit that relationship, my work feeds upon the moments of unease issuing from the unexpected strain on routine and patterns of behavior. Using a material that most people recognize that is initially a cold and hard industrial material to create light, visually soft, hand-altered patterns that bring to mind a domestic environment to challenge our associations with comfort and security. The intimidating nature of steel in contrast to the investigation of routine and security found in the domestic setting encourages conversation that questions balance and exploits the contradictions between material and form. Adding color and altering the industrial non-forgiving pattern to create a fabric-like quality to the pieces, even though the forms still hold their structure and reference the wire and the idea of furniture.

 

My work is centered on process. Almost daily, I watched as different members of my family take part in similar process-oriented activities, such as needlework, crocheting, knitting, weaving, sewing, and other domestic arts. While these activities were typically done with softer and more forgiving materials, I was also exposed to industrial materials and processes associated with farming. I found both activities comforting and reliant on routine. Finding pattern as a metaphor for routine, and the common thread across these varying experiences, I began my work with industrial materials because they inherently provide an impersonal matrix and structure. I also find that these materials contain rich contradictions in and of themselves. For example, while the chicken wire might connote security as it is used to fence off, enclose, or separate things, those qualities can also be understood in a negative light. The device that secures can easily become a cage.

 

As I sit down to alter the chicken wire, I change the geometric hexagonal pattern of the material to a pattern more reminiscent of fabric, I think about how we split up the time we have each day and how time is also an important factor in the work. Typically, the majority of people in my life have a job where they spend about a third of the day working, another third traveling, running errands, or at home, and the last third is spent sleeping. We talk about time as morning or afternoon, splitting the day into two. These factor into how I work with the wire. I section off 24 rows to match the hours in a day. Then I start altering the pattern of the first eight rows until I reach the middle of the wire, and then I finish those eight from the middle to the end of the wire. Then I repeat that process for the second and third set of eight rows until the 24 row section is complete. This splits the 24 rows into three and each row into a half. However, by doing this, the wire starts bunching up, or wrinkling, showing the stress of the altered pattern that is finished in parts but not all complete. I believe this is a significant metaphor for the patterns in our lives that we follow and the stress of changing those patterns.

 

Understanding these inherent contradictions in the materials I chose, my work points to similar complexities in the domestic space of comfort and security. The impersonal structure of the industrial material is transformed through process and the human touch. Both the resulting organic pattern and the meditative process of making speak to comfort, but my forms never quite transcend a cage-like quality and only appear to have the ability to bear weight and provide support. In this way, there is a constant search for comfort through the repetitious process and the fulfillment of this yearning for comfort and security seems always slightly out of reach.